Author Stewart Brand is credited saying the following:
"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, adjusted for inflation, the average cost of attending college for a year has increased 346% in the last 36 years (up from $13,000 to $45,000). That's not exactly a small sum. And again, that's after adjusting for inflation. The real dollar numbers are much worse (up about 811%, from $6,000 to $45,000).
To put that in perspective, the United States income poverty line for a family of four is only $26,500, and according to Statista, there are approximately 19.78 million college students right now. If we decided to feed the poor instead of going to college, we could lift 133 million people out of poverty, or eliminate poverty in the US for about 3.5 years.
Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business. Somewhat of a genius, he's been the founder of several multi-million dollar tech firms, as well as having served on the board of several reputable companies—including The New York Times, Urban Outfitters, and Eddie Bauer. In his book "The Four," he said the following:
"I teach 120 kids on Tuesday nights in my Brand Strategy course. That's $720,000, or $60,000, in tuition payments, a lot of it financed with debt. I'm good at what I do, but walking in each night, I remind myself we (NYU) are charging kids $500/minute for me and a projector."
So on the one hand, college is clear evidence that information does indeed want to become more expensive. And on the other hand, you have the internet demonstrating that information also wants to be as inexpensive as possible—even free. It costs users nothing to search on Google, or Bing, or DuckDuckGo. It costs users nothing to ask a question and get an answer on Reddit or Quora. It costs users nothing to upload videos, post comments, or share their thoughts on YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram. It's even free to search through Google Scholar, a database of databases of peer reviewed scholarly articles.
The internet is how politicians campaign, companies collaborate, and families stay in touch. It's how companies advertise and customers purchase. It's where we research and publish, create and consume, and connect and engage.
Information on the internet is so vast and so inexpensive that if a copy of a Math 1010 syllabus were to find its way into your hands, you could learn everything in that class—in the order the class wanted you to learn it—without paying a dime. You just wouldn't get any of the credit.
Indeed, information has never been less expensive—and at the same time more expensive—than it is now. We have these two, colleges and the internet, fighting against each other over what information should cost—as well as over who should pay for it.
And all of this in a world where we can't seem to figure out what information is worthwhile and what information is not.
Today, I would like to discuss the economy, the internet, and the future of education. How they influence each other, how they'll evolve, and what it means for us.
Perhaps you or a young student you know will have a relatively predictable education. By and large, the process of getting an education has remained effectively unchanged in the last 100 years. From about age 6 and all the way through masters programs, generally speaking, for school, you do the following:
Go to a classroom, sit at a desk or in a chair, listen to a teacher give a lecture, occasionally answer a question, receive a homework assignment, go home and do your home work. Every now and again, sprinkle in a standardized test, and you have yourself a world-class education...or maybe a really awful education. As a society, we actually can't really tell the difference yet. But the point I'm making is that no matter where you are, what school you attend, how much you paid, or whether you're 6, 16, or 26—odds are this is pretty much what your education looks like.
It's also what your parents' education looked like, and it's what their parents' education looked like too. But maybe, with a little bit of luck, it won't be what your children or grandchildren's education looks like.
I've heard a theory that the modern education system was developed to meet the needs of the industrial revolution economy. At the turn of the 20th century, companies like Ford needed workers for their factories. These people didn't need to be particularly smart or creative or talented. They simply needed the ability to learn systems and perform processes given to them. "Take this thing, bolt it to that thing, send it down the line."
And so the classroom was born. Built more on instruction than education. You sit down, read this, do this, and don't talk. Here's your textbook, pencil, and notebook. If you do the work, you'll get a good grade.
It mirrors the industrial economy very well. Stand here, do this, and don't talk. Here are your tools, protective equipment, and rules. If you do the work, you'll get paid.
Of course, I have no way of testing if this theory is correct. Ford owned a car company, he was not the head of the department of education. Economies and education systems are symbiotic, but I'm not sure they're always confederate. I imagine that the modern education system was most certainly influenced by the industrial economy, but I'm not sure it was created by it.